


Memories

by orphan_account



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Amnesiac Grunkle Stan, Everything's Okay, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, Nightmares, Stanuary, mildly, with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:26:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9425636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Written for Stanuary. Stan is still trying to get some memories back but Ford doesn't know how to help him. A fic with a sad start but it’s happy by the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing I wrote for my favorite month, Stanuary!

They trickle back slowly, like water dripping from a leak in the ceiling into the bucket on the floor below. It’s a monotonous neverending collection of droplets from a sixty-year lifetime he never recalled living. And standing above, making sure the faucet keeps dripping, is--Floyd?--Ford. Stanford is up there. His...cousin. No, brother. Why is that so hard; they have the same face! Of course they’re twin brothers.

The children are easy, now that they’ve gone through the glittery scrapbook a couple of times. Mabel and Dipper, the light of his life. They’re the best things that ever happened to him, of that he’s sure.

But Ford...he knows nothing of Ford. Only that they’re brothers.

Until one evening, when Ford found old films of when they were children, when they were just little sunburned boys on the beach, when Ma was right and Pa was scary and everything was fun and Stan remembered.

Most of it.

He felt like something was missing. Something big and important and sad and-- “Hey, Sixer?”

“Hmmm?” Ford looked up from his book.

“I don’t think everything’s come back yet.”

Ford stood up. “Are you alright? Do you need to look at the scrapbook? Or photos? Or watch some films? Or--”

“Nah, I know all that. But...there was a...ten-year gap, I think. About ten years. And it’s...empty.”

That was the best word to describe it:  _ empty. _ There was a definite hole there, but he didn’t know what was supposed to fit.

Ford opened his mouth, but Stan shrugged. “Eh, I’ll sleep on it. You’d better rest too, Poindexter,” he added sternly. “Don’t want you falling asleep in your cereal again.”

Ford laughed, and it was only a little forced. “Right. Goodnight, Stan.”

*

Stan sat bolt upright with a hoarse shout. “Stanford!”

He sat there, panting, wiping sweat and tears from his face. That wasn’t a dream. That was...real. That was real, he’d almost died. He’d been...twenty-one? Yeah. Pretty young. It was Texas, he thought. Texas where he’d almost died in a trunk, alone and nameless. But it was also Texas, he slowly recalled, where he’d chewed his way out of the trunk after he’d called his brother’s name pitifully, when he’d become too fierce and angry to even feel sorry for himself.

It took a while to fall back to sleep.

*

The next morning, Stan was calmly sitting in his armchair, drinking his coffee, when Ford walked in. “Stanley,” he said, “we need to talk.

“There are things--memories--I’ve been hiding from you. And...you deserve to know.” He took a deep breath. “You--”

“I was kicked out of our house at seventeen,” Stan said. “I crushed your dreams and ruined your life. I lived on the run for ten-ish years and almost died more times than I could count. I...grew a mullet, I think. But I was...suffocating. I think that’s the word you used. And worthless, too. Or you meant that. I dunno. But I remember. I remember you hated me. I remember you loathed me as much as I loved you. And I remember...you hurt me. You burned me, but that didn’t hurt as bad as...telling me to get out of your life. Yeah, I remember. Had a couple dreams last night that clued me in and I got the rest later.”

Ford opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, biting his lip, his eyes filled with tears.

“But Stanford?” Ford looked up at his brother’s kind face. “It’s in the past. It’s not now. It’s not the future. And it’s not important. Not now. Not as important as the kids, at least. Hey, hey, don’t cry, I don’t know what to do when people--woah!” He was cut off as Ford flung himself at Stan and wrapped the slightly younger twin in a ferocious bear hug.

“I...you’re back. You’re back, you’re all back,” Ford repeated over and over, laughing and crying as Stan tried to figure out how to react.

He settled for a strong hug in return, a smile into Ford’s shoulder, and a murmur.

“Yeah. And back to stay. Promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Leave some kindness in the comments if you liked it!


End file.
